Serbian director Srdjan Dragojevic, best known for Thessaloniki awarded “Pretty Village, Pretty Flame” and Berlin prize-winner “The Parade,” is at the Locarno Film Festival with dark comedy “Heavens Above,” which is in the International Competition lineup. He speaks to Variety about the film, which has Pluto Film attached as its sales agency, and looks ahead to financing his adaptation of Julian Barnes’ novel “Porcupine.”

“Heavens Above” centers on Stojan, played by Goran Navojec, a simple-minded yet kindhearted man. When a freak accident puts a glowing halo above his head, he quickly becomes an object of veneration. His strong-willed wife Nada (played by Ksenia Marinkovic) isn’t amused by the attention her husband is attracting, so when a TV preacher suggests that sinful behavior will remove Stojan’s sainthood, Nada encourages him to commit as many bad deeds as possible.

“Heavens Above” follows Stojan’s family and an assortment of odd-ball characters across three decades, exploring the impact of miracles in modern-day society. Numerous characters reappear, intertwine, and affect each other’s destinies in increasingly bizarre circumstances. Through these stories, Dragojevic conjures up a grotesque vision of former communist countries after their shift into capitalism.

Dragojevic, who is also a poet and for a short time worked as a psychotherapist, sees the film as being about the development of the Balkan region. “The 90s were a time of war. In the 2000s, there was some kind of new era, a transition; and the future, that is not so bright,” he says. “My decision was, from the beginning, not to talk about Serbia, or even ex-Yugoslavia. I think it’s a story about Eastern Europe and how after 50 or more years of communism, people are getting back to Christianity.”

He says that the period in the future depicted in the film, “resembles early Christian centuries, when the pagan gods and Christ live in co-existence and combine in various, and even eccentric shapes. So that’s how learning about Christianity looks like in ex-communist countries.”

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